Orders placed before 2pm Monday-Friday (excluding holidays, public holidays and bank holidays) are usually dispatched the same day. If there is a delay greater than this we will email you to let you know. In all cases, your card will be debited when your order is processed so that the items can be reserved for you.

The Astral Aspects on-line ordering facility is hosted by Ishop Ltd, one of the UK's most innovative Internet Service Providers. Payments for products purchased from the Astral Aspects website are processed by Ishop, whose third party SSL certificate has been issued by Thawte. For more information please refer to the Thawte web site at www.thawte.com.

All credit card transactions processed from this site are encrypted (this means that your card details are coded during transit, so that should anybody manage to get hold of them, they will be unusable) to create a secure and convenient shopping service for you. Once you reach the checkout area when shopping on-line with us, you will notice a padlock appear at the bottom right of your browser window. Also, the address at the top will change from http://www ... to https://www ... Both are signs that you are entering a secure server.

An authorisation process is then carried out over a secure X25 link. We operate card verification checks to help combat fraud in card-not-present situations - Address Verification System (AVS) and Card Security Code (CSC) - both these systems are recognised by most of the major high street banks.

These systems enable us to run secure checks to ensure that your card is not being used fraudulently and also means that you should ensure the details you give us are accurate.

To increase the security of Internet transactions and protect their card holders, MasterCard and Visa have introduced 3D-Secure (like an online version of Chip and PIN) - indicated by the MasterCard SecureCode and Verified by Visa signs on websites. Depending on the card you have chosen to use in completing your purchase with us, you may be asked by your card issuer for further authentication. If this is the case, once you have entered your card details on our secure site and clicked the 'Process Payment' button, the next screen will take you to your own card issuer's secure website for a one-step authentication. Upon authentication you will see the confirmation of your order, as usual. We do not see and have no way of seeing your card issuer's authentication.

If the details you give us do not match the details the card issuer holds for you, your order will be subject to delay whilst we contact you for further information. We also advise that you contact your card issuer to establish why your card was not authorised.

Cookies are used to track a shopper's movements and purchases whilst they are shopping so that the shopping basket has a way of telling what items they require. The shopping basket will not function if the user sets their browser to reject cookies. Within the secure ordering form, a user can opt to have the personal details to be 'remembered' to speed up future purchasing. This involves the placement of a further cookie on the user's machine. To update these details during any further purchases the user must simply change the information as appropriate and check the update details box. The cookie previously placed on their machine will then be updated. We don't include any personal information in the cookies.